Social/Cultural Anthropology

Come to understand culture as a way of interpreting experience, and realize that culture informs both social life and individual psychology, shaping and coloring how people perceive and act in the world.

Grasp the social scientific principles and reasoning involved in ethnography, and recognize the value, limitations, and ethical implications of this way of making sense of social conduct.

Acquire an informed awareness of other cultural worlds-an appreciation of other ways of being human-of believing, behaving, and belonging, including their kinship organization and ritual, economic, and political practices.

Learn to see personal beliefs, values, attitudes, and conduct-including kinship organization and ritual, economic and political practices-from the perspective of people with different ideas about the way the world works.

Develop an increased ability to write effectively.

Self-Examination

You will learn to do hard things.

The Aims of BYU Education

The Aims of a BYU Education stipulates that students cultivate an informed awareness of the peoples, cultures, languages, and nations of the world. The Global and Cultural Awareness requirement enhances that awareness with a greater understanding and appreciation of the varieties of human experience across time and space. Inherent in the notion of global and cultural awareness is the perspective that we are all spiritual offspring of the same God, that in addition to our common humanity we also possess a nascent divinity. The Global and Cultural Awareness requirement seeks to help BYU students come not only to see the relativity of many of their own, culturally-derived notions but also to go forth to serve, having had meaningful discussion about or hands-on experience in dealing with real world global issues and problems.

1. Students will acquire informed awareness of either a) a culture outside their own, or b) the interplay of cultures, languages, and/or nations at an international level.

2. Students will experience thoughtful reflection on the above, as demonstrated in a structured, guided manner under the direction of a faculty member. Evidence of reflection implies written or spoke analysis that will include a consideration of the student‚??s own responses to the culture or global issue, often involving comparison, and will demonstrate informed awareness.

3. Students will develop greater empathy and charity, and begin to gain a global perspective, by learning to see themselves from another‚??s point of view.